14. Gray ignorance

Ascended Master Jesus through Kim Michaels.

In this key we will tackle another version of the poison of ignorance. Again, the Buddha is Vairochana. Use his mantra as you study this key:

OM VAIROCHANA OM

As I have described, there is a gradual process that leads from total spiritual blindness toward the complete awakening of the Christ consciousness. As they begin to awaken from being self-absorbed, people typically espouse a cause, but they often go through a phase of approaching that cause based on black-and-white thinking, causing them to participate in the dualistic struggle by battling an enemy who opposes their cause. After they have pursued a cause in this way – often for many lifetimes – they begin to see the limitations of black-and-white thinking, and they mature to the point where they can begin to question the idea that there is one absolute truth, or even that it is possible to find absolute truth in this world.

This leads to the next phase, where it is likely that people will have to go through what I call gray thinking, before they finally find the Middle Way of Christ discernment. So I ask you to study the teachings from my website on gray thinking, as it will set a foundation for a deeper understanding of how to find the Middle Way.

Why the ego wants you to think the world is gray

As I have explained in previous discourses, the ego operates entirely in the realm of duality. When you go to the lowest aspect of dualistic thinking, you end up seeing the world as black and white, meaning that you are always right and anyone opposing you is always wrong. The reasoning is simple. People define a belief system as infallible and as the only true one, meaning that they think it is entirely true and not influenced by error at all. In the terminology I use in these discourses, people think their belief system springs entirely from the truth of Christ and is not influenced by the illusions of the mind of anti-christ.

In reality this line of thinking springs from the ego’s desire to set itself up as an authority figure that cannot be questioned. It is an attempt to create the outer appearance that because you belong to the only true belief system, you are guaranteed to be saved. It also gives many people the sense that they are better than those who do not belong to their belief system. If you take an honest look at the world, you will see that even today many people are caught in this approach to life. They have a very obvious sense of righteousness, they judge others and they feel better than others. An obvious example is fundamentalists of any religion, including the religion of materialism.

If you have ever interacted with such people, you will know that it can be extremely difficult to carry on a normal conversation with them. And it is virtually impossible to discuss anything that goes beyond or seems to contradict their beliefs. If you try to make them see that their beliefs are limited or even incorrect, you are usually met with a very hostile reaction. In extreme cases, such people are willing to kill anyone who threatens their belief system, as for example a Muslim fundamentalist who carries out a suicide bombing to defend Islam. Or a Christian crusader defending a piece of real estate in the Holy Land—as if God – a spiritual being – ever wanted people to kill each other over anything in the material world. When people are less extreme, they will label you as being of the devil (or any number of other negative labels) and refuse to talk with you. This, of course, makes such people unreachable for a spiritual teacher.

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What can bring people out of this state of having closed their minds completely? Well, the reality of the situation is that the conscious selves of such people have refused to make decisions. The conscious self has retreated into a self-made fortress and it has assigned the ego as a guard. The role of the ego is to build fortress walls that are impenetrable to anything that would require the conscious self to wake up and start making decisions again. Of course, as the medieval castles proved, any fortress built to keep the world out, will also keep its inhabitants in, thus becoming a prison.

The inevitable result is that the ego will act as a computer that mindlessly carries out its programming, taking the person further and further into the extreme of black-and-white thinking. This will cause the person to be in continuous conflict with other people, and when the conflict becomes extreme enough, the conscious self might finally wake up and realize, “I can’t do this anymore. There must be a better way!”

If the conscious self is willing to take at least some responsibility for its situation, it can now reverse the downward trend, and it can then start the upward path that gradually leads it out of the prison built by the ego. Yet there are three main factors that can impede this growth:

The mental prison was built as a fortress designed to “defend” the conscious self from having to make decisions. Thus, the conscious self might be emotionally attached to the security and comfortability of the prison. This might manifest as an unwillingness to run the risk of making decisions or as an attachment to the beliefs out of which the fortress is built. It might cling to this security in order to avoid feeling vulnerable.

The ego wants the conscious self to believe in the lie that if you don’t make any decisions, you can’t make mistakes. Yet the reality is that because you have free will, not making decisions is still making a decision. If you don’t make decisions, you are allowing the ego to make decisions for you. All of the ego’s decisions are mistakes, in the sense that they will not bring you closer to oneness with God.

The ego’s survival instinct will seek to keep you inside the walls where it feels like it has you and the world under some form of control. So the ego will actively and aggressively seek to prevent you from rising to a new level of the spiritual path.

What do I mean when I talk about rising to a new level of the path? Well, there are many valid ways to divide the spiritual path into levels or stages. In this context, what I am talking about is that you come to the point where you begin to see the fallacy of dualistic thinking. You begin to see the forest itself rather than being blinded by the individual trees. This is when you can begin to consciously reach for the non-dual truth of Christ.

The ego and the forces of this world will mount a major offensive against any person who begins to rise above duality. They will do anything they can think of to keep you trapped in dualistic thinking. Yet their only way of doing this is to use the duality of the mind of anti-christ. However, this is a formidable weapon because it is much more subtle than most spiritual seekers realize.

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As I explained in the previous discourse, many people have started rising out of extreme selfishness by being converted to a religion that talks about heaven and hell. These are what we normally call religious people, and they are still very much trapped in black-and-white thinking. They are largely unreachable to me, and most of them would reject this website outright.

In today’s world, many people have started seeing the limitations of a black-and-white approach to religion. Some are still members of traditional religions while others seek a more universal spirituality or belong to a New Age organization. Common for all these people is that they have started to rise above the black-and-white, fear-based, judgmental approach to religion. Thus, they are what I call spiritual seekers. They realize there is more to know about the spiritual side of life than what can be found in black-and-white doctrines, and they are actively looking for a higher understanding. These are the kind of people who are open to the teachings that the Ascended Host are bringing forth in this age, whether through this website or other means.

My point is that spiritual seekers represent the greatest potential for turning around planet Earth and bringing humankind to a higher level. The problem is that at the present time this is only a potential. What keeps it from becoming a manifest reality is that too many spiritual seekers have become trapped in a form of dualistic thinking that is so different from black-and-white thinking that people believe it is above duality. Yet in reality, it is simply the opposite extreme of black-and-white thinking.

Here is one concept that I would like all sincere spiritual seekers to understand. You live on a planet that is like a twilight zone. Some spiritual light has started to penetrate the density of humankind’s consciousness. Yet there is still so much darkness left that the light and the darkness can mix into shades of gray that make it very difficult to tell the difference between what is real and unreal. Therefore, the human ego and the prince of this world can still use the subtlety of the duality consciousness to blur the distinction between what is real and unreal.

The result is that there is currently no concept, truth or spiritual teaching on this planet that cannot be perverted by the human ego. The ego will try to turn any idea into a dualistic idea by putting it on a scale with other dualistic ideas—usually by setting up the idea in opposition to another idea. The consequence is that whenever you take a major step forward on the spiritual path, your ego will repeat its never-ending game of seeking to create two extremes and polarize you toward either one. When you come to the realization that you have had enough of one extreme, your ego will instantly try to make you jump into the opposite extreme. The purpose is to prevent you from leaving behind the dualistic way of thinking and rising to a higher plateau by finding the Middle Way.

As I have said, most spiritual seekers have had enough of the black-and-white approach to religion. They are done with the fanaticism and they see the fallacy of the value judgment that “Our religion is the only true one and thus we are always right and those who disagree with us are bad people and will go to hell.” Most of them have distanced themselves from this approach, which is a step in the right direction. The problem is that the ego will try to make such people go into the opposite extreme, and in too many cases it is successful.

What is the opposite extreme of black-and-white thinking? It is a form of thinking in which nothing is black and white because everything is gray. This gives rise to a number of problems, but let me briefly outline the main ones:

Religious people tend to think there is only one true religion—their own, which inevitably leads to religious intolerance. Spiritual seekers have distanced themselves from religious intolerance, but many have come to believe that religious tolerance means you must accept all religions as equally valid, meaning that you don’t need to evaluate whether an idea is true or false. Just believe and let believe.

Many religious people are judgmental and intolerant toward members of other religions. Most spiritual seekers make it a virtue to be non-judgmental, but the extreme outcome is that they see almost any type of belief or behavior as acceptable. Or at least they think you should never speak out against other people’s beliefs or behavior.

Many religious people feel threatened by those who disagree with them and often respond with hostility and anger. Obviously, this prevents them from following my command to love one-another as I love them—which leads to hypocrisy. They claim to be Christians, but they don’t act lovingly. Most spiritual seekers see through such hypocrisy and are sincerely striving to be loving toward everyone. However, they also believe that being loving means you should be gentle and never challenge people’s illusions.

The net outcome of this approach is that many spiritual seekers have come to believe that in order to do God’s work and raise the consciousness of the planet, they simply have to avoid the obvious extremism of black-and-white thinking. They think it is enough to be tolerant and loving, but they do not see that this is simply another fortress built to prevent their conscious selves from making its own decisions. They do not realize that the ego that used to be judgmental when – in past lives – they were trapped in black-and-white thinking, has now morphed into an ego that is loving and kind toward everyone. Instead of truly overcoming their egos, they have allowed the chameleon of the ego to change color so that it blends in with their new world view, where being gray has become a virtue that is seen as being superior to being black-and-white. Let us take a closer look at the points raised above.

I have published three new books in both print and ebook format:
Fulfilling Your Divine Plan
Fulfilling Your Highest Spiritual Potential
Making Peace with Being on Earth
The books are based on the dictations...